Following Canada’s lead, the United States is making up ground in the fight against deadly viruses clinging to imported feed products.
Dr. Scott Dee has been at the forefront of studies in the United States on disease control in the pork industry. In a presentation to the 2020 Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium via Zoom, he stressed the importance of research in feed biosecurity, and talked about the gains being made.
“Obviously, with all the historical data on foreign animal disease entering countries and the devastation it causes, there is no need to tell you about that. It’s like preaching to the choir.”
Dee saluted Canada for being ahead of the curve.
“Kudos to Canada,” he said, referring to the CIFA implementing a control program in March 2019 for incoming high-risk feed ingredients from high-risk countries.
“I do appreciate everything that Canada has done to show the world how to manage high-risk feed ingredients from high-risk countries. I just wish we could do the same in the U.S. We are trying very hard to catch up to you.”
Much of his presentation focused on African Swine Fever (ASF).
“ASF is the world’s worst pig virus; it kills basically 100 per cent of the pigs it infects. We have experiences in China with our business, where we have had infections, losing 95 per cent or more of our wean-to-finish population. So, this is a real bad boy.”
There is no ASF in North America, but it has spread from its birth country and is now on three continents: Africa, Asia and Europe. It is in Eastern European countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Poland, and has now made its way into Germany.
In Germany, it has been found in the wild boar population. So far, it hasn’t touched commercial pigs. Dee said wild boar are considered the primary risk.
“However, I will challenge that thought process; you should also consider the risk of feed. It is almost impossible to move a pathogen this fast on its own; it has to have some help.”
He said China had an estimated 50 million sows pre-ASF. That dropped to an estimated 15 million, before the industry started taking off again. It is now believed there are 30 million sows in the country.
Dee said China has no interest in eliminating ASF or anyone virus.
He thinks the problem in China stems from the way grain is dried. And that problem could have been transported to places such as the United States.
“If you have been to Asia, if you have been to China, you have probably seen pictures of grain harvested from the field, thrown onto the roads, and it is basically ground up and processed by vehicles, contacted by animals, by people walking on it and then it is bagged up and sent to North America.
“This is the Trojan horse because there could be some virus living in this feed. That is my biggest concern these days.”
In China, viruses have been found in feed mills, feed trucks and trailers, on people’s hair and shoes, and in fresh market environments.
Dee’s work in the area started in January 2014.
“Basically, what happened in January 2014 is we had some farms infected with PED. The common denominator across those farms was they all had a feed outage in a particular bin.
“They were fed out of multiple mills in multiple states, but they all had a feed outage basically at the same time, so a designated bin was emptied and then refilled, and then animals consuming feed from that specific bin became sick. We found PED in those sows.”
He said the virus was found on the walls of the bins.
“We fed that back to pigs and this was the first proof of concept that showed feed could infect pigs with PED virus following consumption. That put everyone on task here and brought a new risk factor to discussion.”
He said the next step was to see about survival in different ingredients. Researchers found viable PED virus in soybean meal for 180 days, but not at 200 days. For other ingredients, the time period was 30 to 40 days. Others showed no survival at all.
Researchers simulated the time it takes for feed to get from China to Des Moines, Iowa, and from Poland to Des Moines. The travel time from China is 37 days and from Poland in 30 days.
They found many viruses lived very well in the vast majority of feed ingredients.
“That was the first wakeup call for the industry. This is some of the information Canada used to come up with their decision for their special way of importing high-risk feed from high-risk countries.
“The next questions we asked ourselves, from the U.S. point of view, was where do these high-risk sources of feed originate. How do they enter the United States? What are the ports of entry?”
A database of imports, gave U.S. scientists the opportunity to discover how many soy products were coming from countries with viruses such as ASF. In 2018-19, Ukraine, Russia and China were the top three. Far over than 90 per cent of these products were being imported from these three countries, Dee said.
“That is pretty scary when all three of these countries are African Swine Fever Virus positive.”
What is the U.S. doing?
“We are basically doing what you did. We came up with an idea in 2018 to develop a science-based plan to safely import essential ingredients from countries of high risk.”
He said his company, Pipestone Veterinary Services, has been working in China to organize this process for its customers. He said it is basically putting in some basic biosecurity principles that would be used on a farm.
He said the area of weakness was moving the product from the plant to the port. He said the company cleaned up cross contamination in China and products were shipped to Minnesota, one of his company’s locations.
In Minnesota, products are placed in a warehouse about as secure as Fort Knox. There is a 25-day quarantine period at a controlled climate before moving up the food chain.
“Our motivation should be a trans-continental motivation to keep ASF out. You know that, we know that. That is why I started this with kudos to Canada for leading the way. Now we have to pick up the ball.
“There are large number of pork production companies that have responsible import programs, so we aren’t going here totally blind. There is a lot of work going on, but it is not a nice national coordinated program like yours is.” •
— By Cam Hutchinson
Kim Browne Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium coordinator shared with Prairie Hog Country.
Thanks to our speaker sponsors Hypor, PIC, Fast Genetics, Penner Farm Services, Iowa State University and Zinpro for helping spread the word. There are over 315 registered for the event so far. Watch the February release of Prairie Hog Country for more coverage.
